Suppose Dwight D. Eisenhower
found himself suddenly
plopped down in today's America? How would he respond? With
incredulity, satisfaction, and a flash of temper, says
Louis Galambos, in a talk celebrating the publication of the
most recent volumes of The Eisenhower
Papers.

P U B L I C P O
L I C Y & I N T E R N A T I O N A L
A F F A I R S

Ike's View of the '90s
By Louis Galambos

WHAT WOULD DWIGHT
EISENHOWER, a man born in the 1890s, raised in a
small town in Kansas, trained as a military officer, tested in
the greatest war this country had ever fought, and then elected
to his country's highest office--have to say about America today?
The short answer is: Quite a bit!

Eisenhower was very good about prioritizing things. Most people
who are successful are good at that. He did what we all should do
(but don't). He dealt with the most important things first.

What, then, would he think was most important about the United
States in the 1990s? You already know the answer: the end of the
Cold War. I think he would be stunned by what happened when
Communism collapsed in East Europe and when the Soviet Union
actually fell apart, disintegrated, disappeared! Who could have
anticipated that? He would make us talk about this for a long
time.

The central feature of Ike's diplomacy was the policy of
containment. By resisting the expansion of Communism, and by
resisting our temptation to try to bring the struggle to a
military conclusion (Claire Booth Luce among others got
impatient), Eisenhower thought we would win the Cold War,
eventually. He thought it would take a long, long time.

He was right. We did win. And it brought to a conclusion
the most stunningly successful foreign policy of the 20th
century. By any country. It achieved complete victory without a
war. I challenge you to come up with a more successful national
foreign policy.

Think of it in the context of the interwar years and World War
II. How successful was the British foreign policy of the interwar
period? Not that successful. How successful was the German policy
of expansion? We know the results. The Soviet policy of
rapprochement with fascist Germany? We know the results of
that. Japan? Italy? France? Who has done anything more
successful than this in the present century?

It has long been popular in academic circles, especially in
diplomatic history, to say that the United States lacks the
patience and elite leadership it needs to be effective in framing
and implementing foreign policy. But the success of containment
indicates that this is not the case. We were patient. We did have
effective bipartisan leadership. We won! And Ike would want to
talk about that for about three or four hours.

He of course thought it would take much, much longer--maybe
another century. So he would be surprised--pleasantly surprised,
to see what has happened in the 1980s and 1990s in world
politics.

He would be equally surprised and dreadfully unhappy about the
budget deficit we've built up since the 1950s. Remember: he
balanced the budget three times in his two
administrations. He balanced the budget. None of our presidents
has matched that record since 1961 and none of them is likely to
do so for a long, long time.

Well at this point, you might be thinking, "Why would
that be the second thing Ike would comment on?" Because he saw
the policy of containment and the policy of budgetary restraint
as closely linked. In order to wait out the Communist powers
successfully, he thought we had to build our economic strength
and work with our trading partners to keep a viable international
market system going. That was essential.

"He would be terribly happy to
learn that McDonald's is putting up those arches all
over Eastern [and] Western Europe. He'd be happy to
see that sort of enterprise."